In 1619 when Sir Thomas Drewe was building his country home in southwest England, he chose to decorate his parlor in the favored aesthetic of the day: extensive wood carvings from floor to ceiling.

What he could have never imagined was the extensive travel the room would experience on its journey to becoming a popular attraction at the Speed Art Museum.

Originally purchased by newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, the English Renaissance Room was warehoused for over a decade before being purchased by Preston Pope Satterwhite in 1943, and then gifted to the Speed Art Museum in the memory of Hattie Bishop Speed.

The room was installed to fit the available space in 1943, becoming several feet longer in the process. But with recent renovations at the Speed, the room has now been reassembled to its original proportions.

Tasked with reassembly of the English Renaissance Room is Thom Gentle of Vermont, Michael Kelly and the Frederick Vogt Company of Richmond, Va. Gentle is a furniture and object conservator with a relationship with the Speed dating back to 1978.

Gentle described the room as being built with English white oak by “vernacular carvers” who used Ovid’s classic book of poems "Metamorphoses" as a primary source of inspiration.

The English Renaissance Room, and the rest of the Speed Art Museum, will re-open to the public on March 12 after a renovation that doubled the overall square footage, tripled gallery space and will feature new park space, a cinema, a cafe and a welcome center.

The English Renaissance Room at the Speed Art Museum was once a parlor room built in Grange, England in 1619, and gifted to the museum in 1943 by Preston Pope Satterwhite. 1/15/16 Marty Pearl, Special to CJ

The 17th century materials that construct the English Renaissance Room in the Speed Art Museum were originally purchased by newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst in the 1930s. 1/15/16 Marty Pearl, Special to CJ